January 8th 2012 Statement of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress on the occasion of the Centenary Celebration of ...

100 YEARS OF SELFLESS
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Statement of the National Executive Committee
        of the African National Congress
  on the occasion of the Centenary Celebration
                    of the ANC

     January 8th 2012

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
              OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
      ON THE OCCASION OF THE 100th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ANC
                    8 January 2012, Bloemfontein

Your Excellencies
Heads of State and Government
Members of the NEC
The Leadership of the SACP, COSATU and SANCO
The Leadership of the ANCWL, ANCYL and ANCVL
Comrades and Compatriots,
Our friends from all over Africa and the world.

This is the message of the African National Congress.

Introduction
Today, we are honoured to be part of the generations that are celebrating the centenary
of our movement, the African National Congress. Like with the formation of the South
African National Native Congress here in January 1912, we do so not on our own as
South Africans, but with the leadership and people of our region, the continent and
indeed, as a product of our long struggle, together with the progressive people of the
world.

We are privileged to be part of these celebrations, as a testament to the formation of the
people’s movement in 1912, in response to the concrete situation that faced our people
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our people in both practice and in theory. It is tradition that today, as we celebrate one
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ANC, the historical events that impacted on the day to day living standards of the people
of our country, the ANC’s resolve to inculcate a human rights culture, a system of justice
and equality and a better life in a land that belongs to all who live in it.

PART A: LOOKING BACK – THE HISTORY OF THE ANC
Transition from Secondary Resistance to National Liberation
A conference of the leading European powers meeting in Berlin in 1884-85 carved up
the African continent and shared the pieces out amongst themselves as colonies and
dependencies. By the end of that exercise, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia,
every other part of the continent came under foreign rule. Apart from these two coun-
tries, Haiti was the only other territory occupied by Africans and their descendants in the
New World that was self-governing. As a race, virtually all Africans had been reduced
to a subject people, ruled and governed by others, usually Whites from Europe or their
descendants naturalized in other climes.

During the course of that same year, 1884, the Supreme Court of the United States of
America, ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional, there by dashing
the hopes for racial equality that the reconstruction of the former confederacy once held

                                                                  January 8th 2012     1

out. Two years later, the same Supreme Court made its notorious Plessy vs Ferguson
ruling, sanctifying the doctrine of “separate but equal”, thus setting the stage for consti-
tutionally approved racial discrimination in the provision of public services in the USA.

In 1885, after successive slave rebellions all of which had been suppressed with sadistic
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come with rights. Brazil’s former slaves occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder
and were subjected to every form of statutory and non-statutory discrimination.

20th century history was consequently dominated by the struggle of the Africans, in
every part of the world where they lived, for the restoration of their human rights, their
dignity and their freedom. The forms that struggle assumed were in every instance de-
termined by the institutional framework in which it unfolded and by the manner in which
the dominant power responded to resistance from the oppressed.

Today, 8th January, has had since 1912, an international dimension as one of the most
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of African descent, who were dispersed across the Atlantic by the trans-Atlantic slave
trade, for freedom and self-determination. When we proclaim that this is one of the great
and most moving days in the annals of our struggle, we know for certain that that senti-
ment is echoed by millions of African breasts around the world.

The eighth day of January is emblazoned in the historical record as marking the inaugu-
ration of the pioneer of the African revolutionary movement, created by our forebears to
re-claim the sovereignty of the peoples of Africa and to re-assert the freedom the people
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scapes. Since its inauguration in this city 100 years ago, the African National Congress
has been at the forefront of the liberation struggle that culminated in the overthrow of
White minority domination and the suppression of the crime of apartheid.

The vision of our movement’s founders is foreshadowed in the words of an undergradu-
ate from South Africa, named Pixley ka Isaka Seme, in 1906, during a speech day at
Columbia University, New York:
“The brighter day is rising upon Africa... Yes the regeneration of Africa belongs to this
new and powerful period... The African people... possess a common fundamental senti-
ment which is everywhere manifest,... crystallising itself into one common controlling
idea... The regeneration of Africa means that a new and unique civilisation is soon to be
added to the world.”

O Africa!
Like some great century plant that shall bloom
In ages hence, we watch thee; in our dream
See in thy swamps the Prospero of our stream;
Thy doors unlocked, where knowledge in her tomb
Hath lain innumerable years in gloom.
Then shalt thou, walking with that morning gleam,
Shine as thy sister lands with equal beam.”

Five years later, in October 1911, Pixley ka Isaka Seme in an historic clarion call articu-

 2     January 8th 2012

lating a widely felt need for a united struggle against colonial and White domination,
invited the peoples of the sub-continent to meet in conference and by burying all past
differences and divisions, to discuss and plan together for their common future.

The people of Southern Africa responded by dispatching delegates to Bloemfontein,
70 of whom convened in this very city. Among them could be counted John Langali-
balele Dube, an outstanding educationist, Sol Plaatje, author and newspaper editor;
Rev. Walter Rubusana, a man of the cloth and important essayist; Samuel Makgatho,
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lotte Maxeke, an American educated teacher and co-founder of Wilberforce Institute in
Evaton; Thomas Mapikela, a builder and property developer; Edward Tsewu, Reverend
Ngcayiya and many many others.

In their number there were also royal personages, whose forebears had led the armies
that resisted the occupation and seizure of the lands of our continent during the 18th
and 19th centuries: Solomon ka Dinizulu, Montsioa of the Barolong, Lewanika of the
Lozi of Zambia, Letsie II of Lesotho, Labotsibeni from Swaziland, Dalindyebo of the
baThembu, Sekhukhuni of the baPedi and Khama from Botswana to mention but a few.

On an occasion such as this, a special tribute is due to one of their number who could
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of the ANC, that great patriot, King Dinizulu ka Cetshwayo!

The bards and the poets of the day sang thus of this illustrious leader:

UMamonga woSuthu.
UMamonga kabulali uyasizila.
Uqoth’ imbokodo nesisekelo;
Ufana nedlov’ emnyama yasOndini.
USilwa nankunzi mbili.
Enye ngeyakwaNgenetsheni.
Enye ngeyaseBhanganomo.
Umgwazi kadinwa zingqapheli.
Isikhon’ esimazinga.
Umuzi bawuphum’ ehlathini.
Bawulabalabela.
Ithole lakokaMsweli.
Elanyise liguqile.
Indab’ engiyizwe ngimncane.
Ngaze ngakhula ngayibona ngamehlo.

In his absence, he was given this accolade in recognition of the role he had played in
the struggle against White domination. The Natal colonial authorities had banished King
Dinizulu to St. Helena in retribution for his alleged participation in the anti-Poll Tax Upris-
ing led by Bambatha in 1906.

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who had been subjugated by three European powers - Britain, Germany and Portugal, -
                                                                      January 8th 2012      3

towards creating the institutions needed to defeat colonialism and racial oppression and
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All the delegates who converged on Bloemfontein that day were drawn from the British-
colonised part of the sub-continent. During the twentieth century, the advancing African
revolution rendered these boundaries less relevant. The powerful bonds of solidarity
that brought this region through three decades of bitterly fought liberation wars are the
heritage bequeathed us by those delegates in Bloemfontein, on 8th January 1912. That
solidarity remains unshakeable because it was tested in struggle and is sealed with the
blood of our fallen, drawn from every country of Southern Africa.

History decreed that the peoples of our region would shoulder the burden of striving
for freedom collectively. Southern Africa discharged that solemn responsibility with a
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the colonial and racist regimes, assisted by powerful supporters in the world community.
The ANC developed a strategic working alliance with SWAPO, ZAPU, FRELIMO, MPLA,
the PIAGC (The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) and
ZANU.

Before and after the creation of the Union of South Africa, the White powers, the coloni-
alists and racist regimes who controlled our sub-continent, sought to divide our countries
and their peoples into racial and ethnic compartments, the better to dominate them. In
contrast, the ANC and other liberation movements have upheld the ideal of one country,
one people, one democratic state and a non-racial destiny for all who live in it, black and
white.

A minority state with police and administrative powers that it enforced with whips, batons
and guns, inspired by fanatical racist dogmas could not deter the ANC from proclaiming
that our destiny, as South Africans - be we black or white - is inextricably interwoven;
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political institutions of our country so as to create a better society, in a better country, in
a better world.

The system of institutionalized racism had assailed the dignity and human worth of
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tween Europeans and Africans. The Atlantic Slave Trade and the triangular trade cycle
of which it was an indispensable component was originally the material under-girding
of the White racism that legitimized and sustained it. The colonial conquest of Africa
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the same time widening the circle of stakeholders in racism. During these two centuries
the number of its victims also increased exponentially, to incorporate Asians, South and
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Colonized peoples were not citizens of the empire, we were all its subjects who had
and could claim no rights but were governed in terms of the colonial administration’s
construal of “customary laws”. Even in a country, such as the US, with a Constitution
that guarantees full and equal rights to all its citizens, such protections were ignored,
undermined or deliberately subverted as inapplicable to Africans, the indigenous people
and to Asians who suffered every form of discrimination and reduced to the status of

4     January 8th 2012

second class citizens. In Africa, colonial authorities exercised a host of arbitrary powers,
which they wielded at their own discretion, over subject African people, or worse yet, at
the instance of White settlers or metropolitan vested interests.

Highly varied systems of colonialism had evolved in the Americas, Africa, the Carib-
bean and Asia. The one feature that they had in common and made our status here in
South Africa essentially no different from that of an Algerian, a Trinidadian, a Kenyan, a
Burmese, or an Indian, was that we all shared the same fate as colonies - we were gov-
erned by others!. From its inception the ANC actively sought out and cultivated networks
of mutually supportive liberation movements among colonial and oppressed people,
making it possible to coordinate action against the common enemy: racial domination
and colonialism.

The South Africa Act, passed by the British parliament in 1909, permitting the two ex-
Boer Republics to retain their racist electoral laws was a betrayal not only of principle,
but was also the cynical renunciation of a number of undertakings to retain the Cape
franchise laws, and to extend them incrementally to the Black citizens in the other three
provinces.

The cause of democracy, repudiated in practice by the White colonial state and the
White political parties who misgoverned our country for well-nigh a century, found a
home in the national liberation movement. For a century our movement became, and
continues to be, the custodian of basic democratic values, principles and practice in our
country. The national liberation movement championed democracy because we have al-
ways recognised its intrinsic value as the basis for good, accountable government cou-
pled with justice. The principle on which the ANC and the rest of democratic movement
has consistently stood is stated unequivocally in the preamble of the Freedom Charter:
“... no government can justly claim authority, unless it is based on the will of all the
people...”

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comprising Rev. Walter B. Rubusana, Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, John Tengo Jabavu,
D.J. Lenders, Matthew Fredericks and Thomas Mapikela supported by a White demo-
crat, W.P. Schreiner, then joined by M.K. Gandhi, that arrived in London to appeal to the
British parliament not to pass the law with its racial exclusions. It is that tradition of coop-
eration amongst democrats that imparted to our struggle a distinctly non-racial character
in a country whose institutions racialised every facet of public and private life. A funda-
mental premise of the liberation movement was that it was neither possible nor desir-
able to unscramble the historical omelet. The future of South Africa would be shaped by
all those who had made it their home, irrespective of where their ancestors came from,
or how they came to be in South Africa. Our movement has always and shall continue to
cherish the contribution of a small, but courageous contingent of White democrats who
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The struggle for freedom unfolded in a developing industrial society in the throes of rap-
id social and economic change. As the transit point connecting the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans, prior to the opening of the Suez Canal, South Africa has historically attracted
immigrants from every part of the world. The naturalized White population was rein-
forced by immigrants in the wake of mining. The mines spurred the laying of the railways
                                                                      January 8th 2012      5

and the growth of industry giving birth to growing class of urban workers at the sinews
and arteries of our modernizing economy. Alongside the ANC, in constant inter-action
with it and oft-times sharing membership, there grew the movement of the working class
in the urban and rural areas, of peasant and small farmers’ bodies, as well as ad hoc
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&RQVHTXHQWO\RXUEURDGPRYHPHQWIRUQDWLRQDOOLEHUDWLRQKDVVLQFHWKDW¿UVWGHFDGH
taken in both nationalist and class issues. The national democratic revolution has
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Given the character of White-ruled South Africa, the system of racial oppression and our
historical experience, one of the outstanding features of the ANC has been its capacity
to encompass all these within its ranks, on the basis of a common acceptance and em-
brace of the Freedom Charter as a programme encapsulating the aspirations of all our
people, however varied their class, gender and ideological positions might otherwise be.

Throughout the twentieth century the forces of division, injustice and intolerance have
continuously sought to separate these trends within the ANC, politically and organiza-
tionally; or at best, to set them at loggerheads and thus divide and weaken the national
liberation movement. The idle and apparently trivial speculations about who is and is not
an “Africanist”; about divisions between “marxists” and “nationalists” within our ranks,
about tensions between the gender-sensitive and insensitive, historically have served
no other purpose.

These issues remain relevant to this day particularly because those who set themselves
up in opposition to the democratic movement and its leadership still engage in such
speculations.

One year after its formation, the ANC confronted one of its biggest challenges when the
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statute. The anguish rings through in Sol Plaatjie’s elegy:

“Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913 the South African native found himself, not
actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth”.

The law was an act of blatant aggression, which would be described as ethnic cleansing
in the present day vocabulary. Plaatje conveys its terrifying and heart-rending conse-
quences for a small African family he encountered along the road:

“Kgobadi’s goats had been to kid when he trekked from his farm; but the kids, which in
halcyon times represented the interest on his capital, were now one by one dying as fast
as they were born and left by the roadside for the jackal and vultures to feast upon.

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when the eviction took place, and she had to transfer her darling from the cottage to the
jolting ox-wagon in which they left the farm. Two days out the little one began to sink as
a result of the privation and exposure on the road, and the night before we met them its
little soul was released from its earthly bonds. The death of the child added fresh per-
plexity to the stricken parents. They had no right or title to the farmlands through which

6    January 8th 2012

they trekked, they must keep to the public roads – the only places in the country open
to the outcasts if they are possessed of travelling permit. The deceased child had to be
buried, but where, when and how?

This young wandering family decided to dig a grave under cover of the darkness of that
night, when no one was looking, and in that crude manner the dead child was interred –
and interred amid fear and trembling, as well as the throbs of a torturing anguish,..”

Protests at home having fallen on deaf ears, the ANC leadership sent a deputation to
London to appeal to the British monarch to withhold the royal assent.

While the deputation was in London a wave of protests against the attempt of the
Orange Free State administration to impose passes on African women swept that prov-
ince.

During the 1930s organizational decline and division had left the ANC unprepared for
the offensive of the United Party government of Hertzog and Smuts in 1935. Because
the movement had no coherent response, the passage of the Hertzog Bills proceeded
relatively smoothly, except for an unimpressive demonstration as they entered negotia-
tions with Hertzog by the deputation of the All African Convention.

That was a lesson taken to heart by the Young Turks who rejuvenated and reoriented
the movement in the midst of the Second World War.

Building Unity Across Colour, Gender and class
The Communist Party South African was formed in 1921 and had engaged itself in is-
sues affecting workers and the working class. Already then, the seeds of an unique alli-
ance were germinating when the ANC and the CPSA resolved to work together in 1929.
Some of the best cadres of our movement, i.e. Moses Kotane, JB Marks and others
were leaders of both the ANC and the Communist Party. In fact, cde Kotane was also a
dynamic trade unionist and as such, embodied how one can strike a balance in all his
leadership positions and showed understanding and appreciation of what each forma-
tion of the Alliance had to do.

The growing urban African, Coloured and Indian communities acquired strategic im-
portance for the liberation movement during the 1940s. In the towns the communities
themselves underwent transformation as they established new points of association and
they acquired the skills of modern organization. The collapse of the economies of the
“Native Reserves” during the 1930’s and the migration of African families from White-
owned farms in response to the demand for more workers as industries grew swelled
them even further. In the cities and towns they spawned their own community organisa-
tions that took up the immediate issues of shelter - such as the Squatter’s Movement
- and public transport.

In the cities changing gender roles were also evident. In the rural areas the wives of
migrant workers were compelled to take on both gender roles in their households for
the greater part of the year. In the urban shanty-towns and in the trade union movement
women were less reticent and were often more determined in struggles asserting their
right to live and work in the urban areas. During the 1930s and 40s growing numbers of
                                                                 January 8th 2012    7

African women migrated to the cities, where thousands found employment as washer-
women, domestic servants and as factory workers, especially in food processing and
textiles. Growing urban communities required the services of teachers and nurses,
professions into which many moved.

In 1931 the Bantu Women`s League (BWL) was recognised as the women`s branch of
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the ANC Womens’ League. The BWL was mostly involved in passive resistance and
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In 1943 women were formally admitted as ANC members. The ANCWL was formed
in 1948. It engaged in militant struggle, asserting the rights of women and paid very
serious attention to opposing passes for African women. This was a tradition carried on
throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.

Urban struggles, at both the community and factory levels, stimulated the emergence of
a corps of militant women leaders and political activists who initiated the creation of the
ANC Women’s League to replace the auxiliary body in 1946 they also took full member-
ship in the ANC as a result of the new Constitution adopted in 1943. The Federation of
South African Women (FSAW), a multi-racial body, was established on 17 April 1954 -
with the ANC Women’s League as its largest component - to organise a united struggle
against apartheid.

Women from all walks of life and all races participated in the remarkable march on the
Union buildings on 9 August 1956. Once again, the non-racial character of the ANC and
the movement was in evidence.

Ruthless repression by the regime prevented FSAW and the Women’s League from
functioning after 1960. Women found ways to continue their resistance through new
legal organisations or the underground structures. In the external mission, the Women’s
Section of the ANC played an active role.

The ANC Youth League was formed in 1944. The young leaders of the Youth League
based their ideas on African nationalism and believed Africans would be freed only by
their own efforts.

The militant ideas of the Youth League quickly found support among the new population
of cities. The Youth League drew up a Programme of Action calling for strikes, boycotts
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came to power.

The ANCYL has produced outstanding leaders of our movement such as Anton Lem-
bede, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Peter Mokaba and many others
who continue to contribute to the ANC to this day.

Black trade unionists were able to constitute the Council of Non-European Trade Unions
(CNETU) to coordinate workers’ struggles as the unionization of workers improved dur-
ing the war years. Peasants rose in revolt against the impositions of the White govern-
ment and oppressive chiefs in their pay in the rural areas of the Transvaal and the

 8     January 8th 2012

eastern Free State, the residents of Alexandra township in an impressive demonstration
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increase. The strikes, boycotts and other mass struggles during the war years spoke of
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mineworkers in August 1946.

During the Passive Resistance campaign to oppose the Pegging Act, whose aim was
to further reduce the land ownership rights of a Black community, the Presidents of the
ANC, the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) signed
a pact pledging mutual support for one another’s campaigns in 1947. This became
known as the 3-doctors Pact as it was signed by Doctors Xuma, Dadoo and Naicker; the
presidents of their respective organizations. This was the beginning of the Congress Alli-
ance that henceforth dominated the struggle and included SAIC/SACTU, SACPO (CPC)
and COD. Though the thrust of ANC, NIC and TIC policy increasingly converged in the
post-war period, the leadership of all three bodies thought it tactically wiser to retain
their separate identities. The movements had come into existence as distinct organiza-
tions, and though the leaderships might have overcome the racial animosities fostered
by the White minority government’s policies, this did not necessarily apply to the com-
munities they were organizing. United action among the disenfranchised communities in
pursuance of shared immediate and intermediate goals resulted in greater effectiveness
and more effectively broke down the mutual suspicion.

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which 8000 volunteers courted imprisonment by defying apartheid laws.

Inspired by the vision of the ANCYL’s founders and comrades such as Chief Luthuli,
Yusuf Dadoo, JB Marx, Moses Kotane and Duma Nokwe, during the 1950s the ANC,
was able to create a broad front of pro-liberation forces in the Congress Alliance, and
inspire the mobilisation of others committed to change. With the primary aim of isolating
the racist regime through ever broader alliances and coalitions among all South Africans
opposed to racism the movement’s strategy anticipated that the struggle would in turn
generate tensions, divisions and splits within the ranks of the regime and amongst its
supporters

For the ANC and its allies in what was evolving into the Congress Alliance 1953 began
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islation made acts of civil disobedience criminal offences just shy of treason, punishable
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a political objective.

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character, Port Elizabeth, emboldened by the apartheid regime’s counter measures,
took savage reprisals against African workers who had participated in the campaign.
ANC militants were sacked in large numbers, placing the stability of the ANC itself in
jeopardy because political activism became an economic liability.

1953 was also an election year. The National Party (NP), the architects of apartheid had
won the 1948 elections thanks to a formula agreed at the end of the Anglo-Boer War,

                                                                      January 8th 2012      9

weighting rural votes against the urban areas. Though the NP commanded a numeri-
cal minority of the White vote, it won the majority of seats thanks to the relative weight
of the rural vote. The opposition United Party (UP), constrained by its own racism and
trapped by the conservatism of the White constituency it hoped to persuade, mounted a
campaign that appealed to the worst racial instincts of the White electorate.

In the face of increased repression, violence and death, the ANC had emerged from the
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grew exponentially. From a paid up membership of 7000 at the beginning of 1952, it
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had drawn in thousands of participants, registered membership shot up to 60,000. In
the Transvaal the membership quadrupled from 4000 to 16,000.

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of a volunteer for freedom, actively engaged in struggle at the national, community and
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when peaceful protests and strikes were met with brute force and many workers were
killed. This was a harbinger of things to come.

The response of the apartheid state to the campaign also indicated that it would stop at
nothing to repress the struggle for freedom. When the Communist Party of South Africa
(CPSA) was declared illegal in 1950, the state assumed powers to proscribe any person
it deemed a Communist. That power was widely used after the convictions the state had
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The African National Congress embraced a number of values, principles and ideals as
WKHNH\SLOODUVRILWVSROLWLFDOFDQRQWKDWDUHVWLOOUHFRJQLVDEOHDVGHULYLQJIURPDVSHFL¿F
political tradition - a culture of Human Rights, rooted in and inextricably linked to the
political revolutions of the late 18th century, those of the mid-nineteenth century and the
post-war twentieth century.

The movement’s hopes of moving forward relied not only on its capacity for united ac-
tion, but also the resilience with which it could respond to a changing tactical position.
Anticipation of repression persuaded President Mandela to turn his attention to organi-
zational design.

The M-Plan
Responding to this new environment the ANC leadership called on Nelson Mandela to
prepare a strategy document taking account of the threat of impending repression and
that could result in restructuring the movement to enable it to adapt to rapidly changing
conditions of struggle.

Named the “M-Plan”, the document proposed that the ANC be reconstituted from an
organisation based on geographically conceived branches to one built on smaller, more
intimate cells, that were vertically structured like a pyramid, thus permitting the rapid
transmission of information and directives between higher and subordinate structures.
The unit of the envisaged new structure would be a cell, whose responsibilities would
include familiarisation with their locality such that its members would be in a position to
intervene and offer leadership in any local, ad hoc and immediate struggles that might

10     January 8th 2012

arise. It was envisaged that such units would be in a position to give accurate accounts
of the sociology of their neighbourhood, down to a breakdown of the number of occu-
pants in each individual house.

The M-Plan was not the blueprint for an underground organisation, but it recognised that
at best the legal status of the movement in apartheid South Africa was precarious, and
even that could be changed at the stroke of a pen.

Taking advantage of the tactical advances it had made after 1952, the apartheid regime
accelerated the pace of implementing its programme. In 1954, in the teeth of vocal op-
position from every section of the African community it introduced Bantu Education, an
inferior form of education designed to train African pupils for a future in which they would
serve Whites. In 1955 the Industrial Conciliation Act, while providing improved condi-
tions for the resolution of industrial disputes for Whites, outlawed racially mixed unions
that included African workers. Co-opted by these devices, the majority of White unionists
in the South African Trades and Labour Council embraced this racist measure, compel-
ling the majority of unions in which African workers were well represented to organise
themselves into a separate federation, the South African Congress of Trade Unions
(SACTU). That same year the regime prepared legislation that would impose passes on
African women.

Though the people resisted these new measures as best they could, the regime repeat-
edly demonstrated its readiness to use brute force to crush any resistance to its laws.
Large and small mass struggles were met with repressive measures, ranging from
targeted reprisals against individual activists, to baton charges and shootings to break
up public manifestations.

In the rural areas African prisoners, arrested for trivial breaches of the racist laws con-
trolling their movements, were placed at the mercy of White farmers who paid the state
to avail them convict labour. In the so-called “reserves” the regime rolled out its Bantu
$XWKRULWLHV$FWRQHRIWKH8QMXVW/DZVWDUJHWHGE\WKH'H¿DQFH&DPSDLJQZLWKD]HDO
that stimulated active resistance. Opposition to this law dovetailed with resistance to
the imposition of passes for women in Zeerust, Rustenburg, Northern Zululand and in
6HNKXNKXQL6XFFHVVLYHSHDVDQWUHYROWVLQWKHVHDUHDVSURYRNHGWKHLURQ¿VWRIUDFLVW
law. Armed repression was followed by trials, deportations, the deposition of traditional
leaders viewed as reluctant to implement government policy and the execution of the
most militant resisters.

Events on the African continent and in Asia were pointers to the changes sweeping
WKHZRUOGGXULQJWKDWGHFDGH7KH\HDUEHIRUHWKH13DVVXPHGRI¿FHLQ3UHWRULD,QGLD
won her independence and placed the issue of racial oppression in South Africa on the
agenda on the United Nations(UN). The consummation of the Chinese Revolution, when
Mao’s forces drove Chiang Kai-shek’s Guomindang from the mainland in 1949, the
stalemate in the Korean War, followed by the victory of the Vietnamese at Dien-Bien-
phu and the outbreak of the Algerian War of Liberation in 1954 were all signs that power
in the world was visibly changing hands.

The rising momentum of the international movement for national self determination was
captured in the Bandung Conference of 1954. As a participant the ANC renewed and
                                                                    January 8th 2012     11

widened its network.

The collapse of the Franco-British intervention in Suez in 1956 marked the end of the
gun-boat diplomacy of the past. Ghana’s independence in 1957 had an electrifying
impact on the entire continent, raising expectations and exciting calls for more militant
action from below.

Such developments did not however give the regime pause to think. As resistance
mounted, so the regime escalated its repression. In December 1956, 157 people, men
and women distributed across all racial groups, were arrested and charged with Treason
in the regimes most ambitious effort at repression. Proscription orders debarring per-
VRQVIURPDWWHQGLQJPHHWLQJVDQGRUSURKLELWLQJWKHPIURPKROGLQJRI¿FHLQSROLWLFDORU
industrial organisations were used to harass the regime’s opponents and to disrupt the
struggle for freedom.

When the long anticipated guillotine of repression descended, with it came the brutal-
ity and the massacre at Sharpeville on the 21st of March 1960. The ANC and the PAC
were banned on the 31st of March 1960. The movement was not best prepared to
respond to that level of violence and oppression. The regime imposed a 5 month state
of emergency.

Aspects of the M-Plan remain relevant today as an organisational design that could
enable ANC Branchers to embed themselves more fully in the communities where they
operate.

Leading from Exile and Underground
The suppression of the 1946 African mineworkers’ strike set the tone for the following
fourteen years. The strike organizers were arrested and convicted of incitement. More
ominously members of the CPSA’s Central Committee were charged with Sedition.

Thenceforth, the pre-dawn Special Branch raid became a regular feature of the lives of
all opponents of racial oppression. When the ANC and the CPSA called a stay-at-home
strike in May 1950, the regime responded by killing six unarmed strikers. A second strike
protesting these killings and the Suppression of Communism Bill, then before the all-
White parliament, was met with a massive build-up of police in the African townships of
Johannesburg. Armed repression of peaceful protests, administrative repression through
banishment, proscription and illegalisation became the standard response of the regime
to any form of protest or resistance.

The ANC did not disband when the regime declared it illegal. Our membership were
instructed to regroup and constitute an underground, illegal movement that would con-
tinue the struggle, employing means adequate to the challenges of the day.
The following year, 1961, after the apartheid state responded to a stay-at-home strike
with the mobilisation of its police, the defence force and military reservists, the leader-
ship of the ANC took the decision to adopt armed struggle and to create uMkhonto
weSizwe (MK), the nucleus of a national liberation army.

Because the system of White domination had systematically denied the African major-
ity any access to modern military skills, creating the nucleus of a people’s army had to

12     January 8th 2012

FRPPHQFHIURPVFUDWFK$IHZYHWHUDQVIURPWKH6HFRQG:RUOG:DUIRUPHGLWV¿UVW
FHOOVEXWEXLOGLQJDVHULRXV¿JKWLQJFDSDFLW\UHTXLUHGSURIHVVLRQDOPLOLWDU\WUDLQLQJDF-
cessible only outside the country.

The decision to take up arms was made in response to the demonstrated intransigence
of the regime which had used its armed might to repress an unarmed people, made all
forms of political protest unlawful by banning the ANC and PAC, proscribing the move-
ments and actions of its leaders and members, and by banning the democratic press.
An extra-ordinary conference of the now illegal ANC met in Lobatsi, Botswana, during
the course of 1962. The recourse to armed struggle was an agonizing decision for the
leadership of a movement that had pursued non-violence for more than forty years. It
ZDVGLI¿FXOWWRHQGRUVHWKHGHFLVLRQVWDNHQE\WKHOHDGHUVKLSLQWKHDIWHUPDWKRI6KDUS-
eville and the repression of the May 1961 strike. There were a number of imponderables
that had to be weighed. The ANC most of the membership had joined was a non-violent
body with no involvement in armed activity. In order to protect its members against
charges of conspiracy, the conference decided that the ANC and MK would be kept
distinct, though MK would take its political direction from the ANC.

MK announced its existence with a number of nationally coordinated attacks on govern-
ment installations on 16th December 1961. From its inception, in its command structure,
SHUVRQQHODQGUDQNV0.VRXJKWWRUHÀHFWWKHQRQUDFLDOHWKRVRIWKHQDWLRQDOOLEHUDWLRQ
PRYHPHQW,WV¿UVWFRPPDQGHULQFKLHIZDV1HOVRQ0DQGHOD

Even at the moment of declaring war on the apartheid regime, the movement held out
the olive branch, pronouncing a readiness to desist on condition that the regime demon-
strated a willingness to negotiate a new political dispensation in earnest.

The early 1960’s was an international environment more conducive to the conduct of
armed struggle in South Africa because of the successes scored by other national
liberation movements on the African continent and beyond had brought into being a
number of governments that supported the struggle for freedom.

The advances of the national liberation movement internationally had created a climate
of expectation among the oppressed people of South Africa who became more impa-
tient for change.

The crisis produced by the Rivonia Trial and Repression
MK operatives had to fully understand and appreciate that armed struggle took place
within a broader political context and all cadres had to have a full understanding of the
movement’s policies. At the same time, MK also had to promote the justness of the ANC
cause in its choice of targets, attitude to civilians and the treatment of the enemy. This
was a delicate and often very challenging balancing act.

The initial tactics of MK were clear that the violence would focus on sabotage of govern-
ment buildings and installations so as to minimise bloodshed and cause severe tactical
damage.

MK carried out many acts of sabotage, but the initial underground organisation was
                                                                    January 8th 2012         13

no match for the might of the regime. They passed laws to make death the penalty
for sabotage, allowed 90 days of detention without trial and arrested members of the
0.OHDGHUVKLSLQ1HOVRQ0DQGHOD WKH¿UVW&RPPDQGHULQ&KLHIRI0. :DOWHU
Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed
Kathrada and Denis Goldberg were charged with attempting to cause a violent revolu-
WLRQDQGWULHGLQZKDWEHFDPHNQRZQDVWKHµ5LYRQLD7ULDO¶

The Rivonia Trial and its aftermath led to the virtual destruction of the ANC’s internal
underground structures. The question was how to bring back trained soldiers to continue
the struggle inside South Africa. Colonial governments that supported the South African
regime controlled all the surrounding countries, Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique and
MK cadres would have to pass through these hostile terrains to reach home ground.
This geographic remoteness also made it virtually impossible to move large groups of
soldiers and/ or supplies and ammunition into the country without considerable cost as
illustrated by the Wankie and Sipolilo campaign, where groups of our activists were ar-
rested and killed by government forces.

The growth, development and maturation of a political formation such as ours was not a
predictable linear process. Within the ANC we strove to maintain a delicate balance that
sustains continuity but which nonetheless offers the political space for new initiatives
and for the emergence of novel ideas. We came to terms with the reality that this ten-
sion is vitally necessary to keep the movement alive. “Unity in Diversity”, captures how
ANC has historically managed the inevitable tensions that accompany development and
growth in the present.

The ANC leadership had to master the skilful management of the tensions arising from
the demands for coherent collective action and the reality that the political environment
is not static requiring adaptation, constant adjustment and re-adjustment.

2XUSHRSOHKDYHODLGGRZQWKHLUOLYHVDQGPDGHJUHDWVDFUL¿FHVLQWKHVWUXJJOHIRURXU
liberty and in pursuance of the goals for which the ANC has striven. On Robben Island,
in Pollsmoor, in Kroonstad, at Standerton and at Pretoria the regime locked away the
leaders of our people; the young and the old, men and women, black and white.

 In these very dungeons of White domination our comrades continued the struggle
through clandestine organisations that had to be built, evolve, grow, develop and mature
under the watchful eyes of the regime’s warders.

The victories they registered in that unequal battle may be gauged by the slow but
steady improvement of the conditions in prison; the incremental changes in the rights
prisoners were allowed and by the impact the political prisoners had on their gaolers.
While many ex-political prisoners can narrate the callousness and brutality of their gaol-
ers, the stature and gravitas of political prisoners were admired by gaolers and those
continuing the struggle outside.

Repositioning the External Mission to lead
The reverses the movement suffered, particularly during the years 1963-1965, com-
pounded by the death of our late President, Chief A. J. Luthuli in 1967, imposed on our
External Mission the tasks of representing and leading our movement inside and outside

14     January 8th 2012

South Africa. The project of reconstructing a viable ANC organisation had to be initiated
and implemented from outside. After 1965 there were no internal structures to receive
the units of the Luthuli Detachment that had been trained outside. A tension arose be-
WZHHQWKHPRYHPHQW¶VOHDGHUVDQGLWVWUDLQHG¿JKWHUVUHJDUGLQJWKHXUJHQF\ZLWKZKLFK
WUDLQHG¿JKWHUVFRXOGUHWXUQWRWKHFRXQWU\

The Revolutionary Council (RC), created by the Morogoro conference in 1969 to which
OR Tambo was elected as its head, Yusuf Daddoo as Deputy Head and Joe Mathews
as Secretary, was mandated to resolve that problem. The Morogoro strategy and tactics
document dealt at length with the relationship between the political and military strug-
gles, and emphasised the primacy of the former. The RC therefore concentrated on
political work, especially on the task of re-establishing contact with our people at home,
rebuilding our organised presence inside the country, and devising secure networks for
WKHLQ¿OWUDWLRQRISHUVRQQHODQGZDUPDWHULDOV2QWKHPLOLWDU\VLGHZHDOVRIRFXVHGRQ
the organisational work of building up uMkhonto weSizwe inside the country, raising
the quality of both its personnel and the ordinance they received. The seriousness and
determination with which the ANC leadership took those internal tasks gave the 1969-74
SHULRGDGLVWLQFWLYHFKDUDFWHUHQDEOLQJ$1&LQWHUQDOVWUXFWXUHVWRUHFRYHUVXI¿FLHQWO\WR
PRYHIRUZDUGFRQ¿GHQWO\DQGWRH[SORLWWKHJUHDWHUSRVVLELOLWLHVWKDWHPHUJHGGXULQJWKH
QH[W¿YH\HDUSHULRG7KHUROHSOD\HGE\2OLYHU7DPERZDVSLYRWDOWRIRUJLQJXQLW\ZLWKLQ
the ANC as well as reaching out to the international community; he was the driving force
of the four pillars of our struggle.

The revolutionary council was transformed into the Political-Military Council, with Com-
rade Josiah Jele as its Secretary. The existence of the PMC allowed the ANC to ensure
that its military wing was commanded by the political leadership of the ANC and took
direction from the NEC of the ANC.

We take this opportunity to pay tribute to the veterans of our movement, to those who
fought in Zimbabwe in1967 and 1968 and those who came as delegates to the Mo-
rogoro Conference to chart our way forward in 1969. We recall the names of Basil Feb-
ruary, known as Paul Peterson in the ranks of MK, a young Coloured intellectual from
WKH:HVWHUQ&DSHZKRGLVWLQJXLVKHGKLPVHOIDVDWKLQNHUDQGDVD¿JKWHUDQGIHOOLQEDW-
WOHLQ5KRGHVLD:HSD\WUXEXWHDOVRWRRXU0.¿JKWHUVZKRYROXQWHHUHGIRUVHULYFHWR
¿JKWDORQJVLGH)5(/,02LQ0R]DPELTXHDQGWKRVHZKREHFDPHFRPEDWDQWVLQ$QJROD
¿QJKWLQJWRIUHHWKDWFRXQWU\IURPWKH\RNHRIFRORQLDOLVP

Internal reconstruction
After the establishment of the RC at Morogoro our organised contact with the people
also improved thanks to the steady penetration of our propaganda, transmitted by word
of mouth, in actions, in print and on the airwaves. Radio Freedom, initially set up inside
WKHFRXQWU\GXULQJWKHVZDVUHHVWDEOLVKHG¿UVWLQ=DPELDDQG7DQ]DQLDGXULQJ
1973, and steadily acquired facilities in three other African states so that by Janu-
ary 1990, we were beaming eight hours of ANC information and propaganda into the
country daily! Radio Freedom gave the ANC the capacity to hold virtual mass meetings,
covering all of South Africa, on a daily basis. The underground propaganda units operat-
ing from various points inside the country and from a few select countries abroad also
made the organised presence of our movement felt among our people through imagina-
tive propaganda.
                                                                   January 8th 2012     15

The challenges were:
 ‡ KRZWRUHFRQVWUXFWWKH$1&DVDQXQGHUJURXQGSROLWLFDOPRYHPHQWRSHUDWLQJXQGHU
    conditions of totalitarian repression inside South Africa;

 ‡ KRZWRUHYLYHWKHVSLULWRIPLOLWDQF\DPRQJWKHRSSUHVVHG

 ‡ KRZWRFUHDWHDSROLWLFDOHQYLURQPHQWFRQGXFLYHWRWKHLQ¿OWUDWLRQRIPLOLWDU\SHUVRQ-
    nel and materiel into the country;

 ‡ DQGKRZWRUHYLYHPDVVVWUXJJOHV

Our strategy entailed attaining four inter-related goals:
 ‡ PDNLQJWKH$1&DQRUJDQLVHGSUHVHQFHDPRQJWKHSHRSOHRI6RXWK$IULFDJHQHUDO-
    ising among the mass of our people an appreciation that revolutionary violence was
    not only necessary but could be successfully deployed against what appeared to be
    a formidable enemy;

 ‡ VWLPXODWLQJDPRQJRXUSHRSOHWKHXQGHUVWDQGLQJWKDWZLWKRXWWKHLUDFWLYHVXSSRUW
    and protection, the armed cadres of the movement could not hope to survive in the
    country;

 ‡ LQVSLULQJWKHLUVHOIRUJDQLVDWLRQLQHYHU\IRUPRIPDVVRUJDQL]DWLRQWRDFWLYHO\HQJDJH
    in struggle to overthrow the apartheid regime;

 ‡ $QGFUHDWLQJVHFXUHOLQHVRIFRPPXQLFDWLRQEHWZHHQXQLWVRQWKHJURXQGDQGWKH
    leadership for purposes of intelligence and counter-intelligence.

For its success the armed liberation struggle would have to be built on four interdepend-
ent pillars - the ANC underground; mass political mobilisation; armed struggle; and
international solidarity.

At the heart of this strategy were the politically mobilised and active masses of our
people who had to be drawn into the mass political struggle in every conceivable way
WKURXJKWKHOHDGHUVKLSDQGSROLWLFDOLQÀXHQFHRIWKH$1&XQGHUJURXQG7KHVHVWUXJJOHV
too were to be coordinated and meshed for an effective political offensive against the
apartheid regime and all its structures. It was therefore the task of the movement to avail
itself of whatever political space existed, even under the totalitarian apartheid regime, to
further the struggle, by encouraging the formation of organised popular structures at the
local, regional and national levels and striving to bring them under the overall leadership
of the ANC. The armed struggle would thus be based on and grow out of the mass politi-
cal struggle.

:HZHUHFRQ¿GHQWWKDWWKHSDFHDQGOHYHORIVWUXJJOHLQVLGHWKHFRXQWU\ZRXOGVWLPXODWH
international solidarity, whose effectiveness, in turn, would act as a further stimulus to
mass struggles.

:HZHUHFRQ¿GHQWWKDWDVWKHVWUXJJOHSURJUHVVHGWKHFRRUGLQDWLRQDPRQJWKHVH
various planes could culminate in armed action to overthrow and dismantle all the
machinery of the apartheid regime. Such a climax might arise as a result of the cumula-

16    January 8th 2012

tive effect of armed and mass struggles or as a general insurrection of the oppressed,
spearheaded by the people’s army, uMkhonto weSizwe.

Nkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the KwaZulu Bantustan, a former member of the ANC
Youth League took up his position in the KwaZulu Bantustan after consultations with
the ANC leadership and was asked to use the legal space provided by the bantustan
programme to participate in the mass mobilisation of our people on the sound basis of
orienting the masses to focus on the struggle for a united and non-racial South Africa.
However, this did not happen and Inkatha became a force of opposition to the ANC in
Natal and Kwa Zulu. He did, however, reset the overtunes of the Apartheid regime to
accept independence for the Kwa Zulu bantustan.

We take this opportunity to pay tribute to the veterans of our movement, to those who
fought in Zimbabwe in 1967 and 1968; to those who came as delegates to the Morogoro
&RQIHUHQFHWRWKRVHZKRMRLQHGIRUFHVZLWK)UHOLPR¿JKWHUVLQ0R]DPELTXHDQGWR
WKRVHZKRIRXJKWDORQJVLGH03/$LQ$QJRODGXULQJWKHVDQGµV

These comrades are the men and women who staffed the organs of the movement
established at Morogoro to rebuild our political and combat capacity as enjoined by the
Morogoro conference. Some were captured, demobilised and served long prison sen-
tences on Robben Island and other prisons. Others fell in enemy ambushes, were killed
or captured. We recall the honoured names of Flag Boshielo, an indefatigable libera-
WLRQ¿JKWHUZKRKDGGLVWLQJXLVKHGKLPVHOILQVWUXJJOHVLQFHWKH'H¿DQFH&DPSDLJQRI
)DOGRQ0]LZRQNHDVHDVRQHGSHDVDQW¿JKWHUZKRVHWUDFNUHFRUGVWUHWFKHVEDFNWRWKH
1940s, all of whom perished at Katima Mulilio in their effort to reach home.

Today we make bold to say that had it not been for the steadfast commitment and loy-
alty of these comrades to our movement and our revolution, there might very well have
been no ANC to join when the youth poured out of our country after the Soweto Uprising
of 1976. It was these comrades who became the military, political and organisational
instructors of a new crop of recruits, who had been steeled in the street battles of that
year.

In rebuilding the ANC among the people, we designed all our structures to become the
tribunes of the people, capable of giving leadership and guiding the search for viable
remedies to the people’s plight. The quality of our structures should also be felt in their
concern for and involvement in the day-to-day problems of our people. It should be
evident in their leadership of the people in struggle.

The African National Congress pinned the imperative of national unity through struggle
to its mast of the from its very inception. The youth took up the cudgels during the late
1960s, borrowing freely from movements in the USA and other parts of the world, and
organised themselves in students’ bodies that served to arouse and mobilise crucial
sectors of our people to political activity that had declined after 1965. During the 1970s
the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), which found fertile ground among our stu-
dent youth, emerged as a distinct political and organisational force within our country. As
DPDWWHURIFRXUVHWKH$1&KDGWRGH¿QHLWVDWWLWXGHWRZDUGVWKLVPRYHPHQW,QVWDWH-
ment issued after its second session in 1973, the NEC of the ANC said:

                                                                    January 8th 2012     17

“In the last few years... there has come into being a number of black organisations
whose programmes, who by espousing the democratic, anti-racist positions that the
$1&¿JKWVIRULGHQWLI\WKHPDVSDUWRIWKHJHQXLQHIRUFHVRIWKHUHYROXWLRQ”
The NEC statement went on to elaborate:
“The assertion of the national identity of the oppressed black peoples is... not an end
in itself. It can be a vital force of the revolutionary action involving the masses of the
people. For, it is in struggle, in the actual physical confrontation with the enemy, that the
SHRSOHJDLQDODVWLQJFRQ¿GHQFHLQWKHLURZQVWUHQJWKDQGLQWKHLQHYLWDELOLW\RI¿QDOYLF-
tory - it is through action that the people acquire true psychological emancipation.”

Proceeding from these positions, the ANC sought to establish relations with the forces
represented in the BCM and to engage with them on the collective revolutionary experi-
ence of our people.

Our aim was to establish close fraternal relations with this movement and to encourage
it to grow as an instrument for the mass mobilisation of our people into struggle.

This was by no means an easy, uncomplicated and straightforward process. We
encountered and had to combat an idea that was beginning to emerge among some cir-
cles, particularly outside our country, that the BCM could consolidate itself as a political
formation to replace the ANC or as a parallel movement, enjoying the same legitimacy
as the ANC.

We denied the ANC’s opponents any and both these possibilities by our manner of
engagement with the BCM. Despite the severe setbacks we had suffered during the
sixties, the enemy had failed to destroy the prestige of the ANC among our people. Be-
cause of our movement’s continuing status, the quiet re-establishment of our presence
internally, together with the activities that we undertook within the country, the youth
whom the BCM was organising were at least conscious of the ANC though most had
grown up without any direct experience of bor contact with the ANC. This enabled us to
build our relations with activists of the BCM and by so doing to frustrate the schemes of
those who sought to build a so-called “Third Force”, positioned to the right of the ANC.

The ANC has always recognised the impressive, positive contribution made by the
BCM in activating of our people and mobilising especially the youth into struggle. On
this occasion, we once again pay tribute to and salute the young militants who took up
the banner of the freedom struggle at a time when open political activity was at its low-
HVWHEE:HDOVRUHFRJQLVHWKHVLJQL¿FDQWLGHRORJLFDOFRQWULEXWLRQRIWKH%&0WRZDUGV
building unity among the black oppressed masses of our country, that emphasised the
common oppression endured by Africans, Coloureds and Asians alike and underscoring
our shared destiny. Building on political positions that our movement had canvassed and
fought for since the end of WWII, the BCM became one of many emergent movements
building a united front against the institutions and the ideology of White racism. BCM’s
popularisation of the term “Black”, to designate all the victims of national oppression
also had the salutary effect of inverting the logic of racism and breaking the pathologies
of self-loathing and the racist inspired myth that the African people might be immigrants
from elsewhere with no original claims on South Africa.

While expressing our profound appreciation of the contribution of the BCM, we also

18     January 8th 2012